What is Jio, and why are tech’s biggest players suddenly obsessed with it?

Source?

Jio is not the only telecom in India with 4g spectrum or services. I personally use Airtel, and I get 4g everywhere I go without issues.

>I'm super curious what technical reasons mandate that there can be only one 4G license in a country with 1.4 billion people.

The confusion you have seems to stem from the fact that Jio advertises itself as India's only full 4g network. What that means is that the greenfield network build by Jio only uses and supports 4g networks and not the older 2g and 3g networks. So in other words, the Jio network is 4g exclusive for it's customers.

The older telecom are older and still operate old 2g and 3g networks so they cannot market themselves that way

Longer version : Reliance/Ambani family have ties to pretty much the entire political spectrum in India and not just the current govt. This is one of the reasons why they have thrived since 70s when the group was started by Mukesh Ambani's (current CMD) father Dhirubhai. But this is not the only reason they have thrived, they started with polyester and captured the entire upstream upto crude refining. The Jamnagar refinery project was started in the 90s and was setup under the supervision of Mukesh. It is the largest refining complex in the world with some of the best refining margins in the world. Aramco almost bought a 20% stake in it recently, a deal which got suspended because of Covid.

As far as the pan India 4G license goes, it came at a time when others were still topping up their 2G and 3G licenses which were selling at a much higher premium due to the competition. It wasn't as if it was not on offer to others, it just did not make business sense for them at the time. And the license was auctioned around 2009-2010 while the current government only came to power in 2014. The conversion of pan India broadband license to 4G also happened before 2014. Heck, I remember seeing the Jio backbone OFC cables being laid in multiple cities before 2014. Corruption at the highest level (multiple cases involving multiple ministries, even reaching the Prime Minister) was one of the main reasons the previous UPA govt was routed in 2014.

Ref : https://web.archive.org/web/20130606064256/http://www.ground... https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas...).

It completely ignores the real stories in technology and development which make people invest.

if you do your due diligence companies like Reliance (Dhirubhai Ambani) are the reason most honest smart Indians are fleeing the country

From things like bribing the government at city and state levels, to 'disappearing competitors' to going after competitors with the sole purpose of killing them off

Of course, now with what is happening with TikTok you could argue US is fast becoming the same

you can just buy Government influence instead of having to compete

Frankly, it is getting a bit stale and feels a lot like the standard Redditesqe drive-by factless commenting behavior to gain cheap karma and dopamine hits of raging against the system. HN is supposed to be better.

> They can essentially bulldoze government over any rules and regulations, and bribe around freely.

Um no. Can you show any, any incidences of them breaking the law or bribing anything other than "I know deep down in my heart of hearts that they do"?

And regarding bulldozing regulations or skirting them, isn't that how every corporation works. Hell, that is essentially how every SV company, big or startup works. And so does any other company in any other country. Nothing unique or special going on here that should be pointed out in every thread.

> This is how Reliance got big.

This is not how Reliance got big. They got big by work and bringing products to the market. The founder made his first IPO by quite literally hawking his shares alongside his products to retail customers. And Jio is not something that is mandatorily being shoved down people's throats. People willingly use it and pay for it.

If Jio is profitable, or would be profitable if it did not invest all the profits (like Amazon used to do), it's another story. But if the unit economy isn't working, then yes, it'b be an Uber, a unicorn which is too heavy for its own hooves.

Probably something involving VoLTE.

Recently ordered a few items on it. A toothpaste, some Almonds.

It came in a paper bag, wet from rain, soggy and a mess.

However there are two things that are massively in favor of JioMart.

Reliance already has about 11,000 stores in over 6700 cities. These are called "Reliance Fresh" and are quite popular. JioMart is using these stores to send orders to and deliver them.

The costs for capital and expenses for these stores are already done and most of them are profitable.

All JioMart is doing is to consolidate the stock information, take orders and push orders to appropriate stores.

Imperialism is a function of nation-states, not corporations.

Most nations have "national champion" corporations that work with the nation's government to promote/influence other nations. US/Boeing, EU/Airbus, France/Bull, etc.

So calling Bezos/Zuckerberg "imperialist" while Pichai/Nadella are somehow not is ridiculous. These are CEOs of corporations. All corporations are "imperialist" in that they are attempting to gain "market" against their competitors and they will co-opt their associated nation-state to help that.

Corporations are amoral by definition.